A Garden-Fresh Thanksgiving: Bringing Your Harvest to the Table

Communitycooking

Nov 21

As a single chick without kiddos to cook for, I may be on my own here, but I get really psyched about holiday cooking for my extended family. It’s as though every dip and dinner, every soup and sweet, every single weekend experiment throughout the late summer and fall is a dry run for my family’s holiday fixins. The theme running throughout all my recipe research: what can I use from my garden?? This is prime time to show off my green thumb and wow my sisters-in-law with homegrown, organic goodness. I want to embody Martha, I tell you. (Have you seen the documentary? I’m enamored.)

Here in Nashville, November gifts us with hearty greens, earthy root vegetables, and herbs that thrive in cooler weather. This year, most gardeners are also picking late season eggplants and peppers and wondering on earth to do with baskets of green tomatoes. This bounty is perfect for a large family gathering— it’s time to decorate the table with sprigs of sage, clink cocktail glasses with rosemary stems, and stuff ourselves with kale and carrots, stuffed peppers and baba ganoush, and oh yeah, turkey!

**So let’s start with the table setting.**

My aunt used to drive from Chicago with a hilariously large armload of herbs, and she’ll go down in history as the most Martha Stewart human I know. If you’re traveling this year, you’re going to want to snip large mason jars of sage, thyme, oregano and rosemary and snuggle them into a cup holder. All of these provide perfect greenery to wrap with twine and display above plates, as a center piece, or tucked into napkins and name plates.
(This pic is from my garden bud in WI, Katie Oglesby. Check out her fabulous blog for SO MUCH INSPIRATION.)

**And moving quickly to the cocktails…**

Before the craze begins, I make herbal simple syrups to add to whatever the heck the family is drinking. Simple syrup is a 50/50 ratio of white sugar and water stirred together over low heat until they form a sweet syrup. (Or 50/25/25 water to honey to sugar.) Add dried or fresh rosemary, thyme, lavender or mint to the syrup just after the sugar dissolves, and whoa buddy you can take a cocktail up a notch. Try this lavender lemon drop martini from the Spruce, for example. 🤗

**Eggplant Dip— you’ll be amazed.**

Now let’s discuss dips— the real filler of the holiday belly. While it’s inevitable that there will be the much-loved dishes of phyllo dough, jam and brie and a cheesy seven-layer-dip, I have perfected this baba ghanoush recipe from Cookie and Kate this fall and I think it will pass even the most shrewd eleven-year old taste test. Everything tastes better with garlic and tahini!

Friend Green Tomatoes

If you haven’t made fried green tomatoes before, you must. And if you’ve made them but they’re not at the top of your Thanksgiving recipe list, I think it’s time to shake it up a bit. Fried green tomatoes are summery, it’s true, but hot green tomatoes, corn meal and spicy sauce should be eaten more often, if you ask me. What’s more— you can basically prep fried green tomatoes and freeze a tray after you dredge them in yummy corn meal. Then, when it’s time to whip up the perfect side or one of those “eating-while-standing-around-the-island-counter” foods, you can fry up some green tomatoes. It’s a mouthful of summer just as everyone is starting to miss the sunshine. Check out this recipe to prep your holiday meal now— before the kitchen is crowded.

**Roasted Winter Squash**

At TKG, we don’t often plant winter squash in the garden, because— like a pumpkin— winter squash are vining plants, and they take over the garden if not grown on a vertical support. But personally, I grow as many squash as humanly possible every year, and you may want to take note if you have the space. I love them— kabocha are my favorite, delicata and honeynut tied for second, then butternut, acorn and spaghetti. Check out this beauty from the New York Times.

**Candied Jalapeños**

Remember the sage-bearing aunt that I mentioned above? Well her daughter is Mini-Martha, and I love the candied jalapeños that she makes every year and sends as a Christmas gift in tiny mason jars. These little delicacies are perfect on crackers with goat cheese— like, perfect. They are sweet and spicy and jammy and crunchy. Out of control. This year, I didn’t have enough jalapeno peppers, but I had a bucket of banana peppers, so I amped up the cayenne pepper in this recipe and let it fly. Fingers crossed my bright yellow candied banana peppers win the fam’s seal of approval.

I’ve now shared six Thanksgiving ideas, and I haven’t even gotten to the turkey. But honestly— what holiday-goer says that the turkey is their favorite part of the buffet line? I cannot imagine. Still… Please reach out and share ways that you have used your garden at the holiday table. Sage-rubbed meat, anyone? Late season okra in your seafood gumbo? Jalapeño cornbread? I’m all ears and will soon start prepping for ‘26.